Defends the Gospel of Jesus Christ and confessional Reformed Anglicanism. The term "Reformed" refers to the five solas of the Reformation and the five points of Calvinism. The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, 1662 Book of Common Prayer, and the Ordinal constitute the Anglican Formularies, the doctrinal standards of Anglicanism. The Lambeth Articles 1595 and Irish Articles 1615 are Reformed confessions. Isa 1:18,Rom 12:1, 2

About Me

In God's providence my doctrine has changed from Pentecostal Arminianism to Calvinism and Reformed Anglicanism. My Reformed standards are the Anglican Formularies (39 Articles of Religion, 1662 BCP, the Homilies), with the Westminster Standards and the Three Forms of Unity. Asbury Seminary, Wilmore, KY, 1995, M.Div. Southeastern University, Lakeland, Florida, 1991, B.A., Cum Laude. [Nota Bene: All e-mails to me are considered in the public domain. I reserve the right to post them on the blog. Anonymous comments may or may not be posted at the discretion of the blog owner.]
Anglo-Catholicism and Arminianism are heresies.
I view Amyraldianism as a departure from Reformed theology and I disagree with the three points of common grace and the "gracious offer". I do post or link to sites that disagree with my views at times and having those sites on my blog does not constitute an endorsement of everything said on those sites. I generally endorse the presuppositional apologetics of Gordon H. Clark.
I am open to speak at your church or to debate publicly. 2012 Copyright notice: None of my posts may be used without permission. Provide links to the original post.

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Martyred for the Gospel

The burning of Tharchbishop of Cant. D. Tho. Cranmer in the town dich at Oxford, with his hand first thrust into the fyre, wherwith he subscribed before. [Click on the picture to see Cranmer's last words.]

Collect of the Day

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who hatest nothing that thou hast made and dost forgive the sins of all them that are penitent; Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins, and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of thee, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Daily Bible Verse

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Friday, September 28, 2012

Since Johnny Wesley Arminius the Presbyterian (Wes White) has announced that he is going to delete his blog, Johannes Weslianus, I thought I better post this excellent article on C. S. Lewis before it disappears.

Was C.S. Lewis an Anglo-Catholic?

By Pastor Brian Carpenter

C.S.
Lewis has certainly received a warm embrace by almost all sections of
Christendom, and by people of all sorts of other stripes. When I was a
student at St. Meinrad’s School of Theology and Benedictine Monastery
(yes, you read that right) there was a whole section in the bookstore
dedicated to Lewis’ writings and writings about Lewis. I bought my own
copy of Pilgrim’s Regress there. His books could also be found
in the bookstore of the liberal Presbyterian seminary where I studied.
And when I attended Bethel Theological Seminary in St. Paul, MN, I also
found him prominently featured in the campus bookstore and widely
appreciated at the seminary. I have to say that no other (uninspired)
author I can think of could be found in those three places. That
remarkable fact alone speaks volumes about Lewis’ stature. Lewis even
has a following among the Mormons, who find some of his more speculative
fictional writings to be congenial with their peculiar views.

But it is somewhat surprising that Lewis has been received so widely
among Evangelical Protestants, for Lewis’ views, especially the views he
expressed towards the end of his life, were remarkably congruent with
Anglo-Catholicism.

What is even more surprising is how many Protestant Evangelicals are unaware of that fact. Mere Christianity,
it is true, was written to be “non-partisan” on matters which divided
Protestantism from Rome, but that is the only place where he
intentionally withheld his own views. In every other place where he
thought it relevant, he had no qualms about articulating them.

However, he did not see himself as a belligerent participant, taking
sides in a battle of ideas within Christendom, except insofar as some
aspect of unbelief had invaded Christendom. Even there, he was
courteous. Thus, most of his fire was directed outwards, towards the
pervasive unbelief he encountered. So it is true that Lewis stayed away
from internecine debates, and in particular the debate between the high
and low parties in the Church of England (one friend and biographer
remarks that Lewis looked at him as though he had tried to serve him
poison when he mentioned it, and said, “We must never speak of that
again.”)

Yet his views were clearly congruent with Roman Catholic or
Anglo-Catholic theology. Consider, for instance, the theology of the
sacraments underlying the following statement from “The Weight of
Glory:”

Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is
the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian
neighbour, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat, the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.

In his essay “Priestesses in the Church?” he argues that women can’t
be priests, but not because they can’t preach, à la 1 Tim 2:12, (indeed,
he explicitly repudiates the notion that women can’t preach in this
essay.) Instead, he grounds it on the concept that the priest must be
male in order to represent God to the people. This, of course, is the
argument used by Rome to justify an all male priesthood.

In one of his radio addresses during WWII, he said (and note the order):

There are three things that spread the Christ life to us: baptism, belief, and…the Lord’s Supper.

About the Lord’s Supper, he once said:

Here is big medicine and strong magic.

And again he said:

My ideas about the sacrament would probably be called ‘magical’ by a good many modern theologians.

He also credited his wife’s very striking remission from cancer to a
private communion service administered by a friend of his who was an
Anglican priest.

Lewis professed a belief in purgatory. In Letters To Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer he wrote:

I believe in Purgatory. Mind you, the Reformers had good
reasons for throwing doubt on the ‘Romish doctrine concerning Purgatory’
as that Romish doctrine had then become . . .

. . . The right view returns magnificently in Newman’s DREAM. There,
if I remember it rightly, the saved soul, at the very foot of the
throne, begs to be taken away and cleansed. It cannot bear for a moment
longer “With its darkness to affront that light.” Religion has claimed
Purgatory. Our souls demand Purgatory, don’t they? Would it not break
the heart if God said to us, “It is true, my son, that your breath
smells and your rags drip with mud and slime, but we are charitable here
and no one will upbraid you with these things, nor draw away from you.
Enter into the joy?” Should we not reply, “With submission, sir, and if
there is no objection, I’d rather be cleaned first.” “It may hurt, you
know”—”Even so, sir.”

I assume that the process of purification will normally involve
suffering. Partly from tradition; partly because most real good that has
been done me in this life has involved it. But I don’t think the
suffering is the purpose of the purgation. I can well believe that
people neither much worse nor much better than I will suffer less than I
or more. . . . The treatment given will be the one required, whether it
hurts little or much.

My favourite image on this matter comes from the dentist’s chair. I
hope that when the tooth of life is drawn and I am “coming round,” a
voice will say, “Rinse your mouth out with this.” This will be
Purgatory. The rinsing may take longer than I can now imagine. The taste
of this may be more fiery and astringent than my present sensibility
could endure. But . . . it will [not] be disgusting and unhallowed.

The Newman he mentions is the 19th C Oxford Tractarian who founded Anglo-Catholicism.

Along with that, he believed in praying for the dead. Again, in Letters to Malcolm he writes:

Of course I pray for the dead. The action is so
spontaneous, so all but inevitable, that only the most compulsive
theological case against it would deter me. And I hardly know how the
rest of my prayers would survive if those for the dead were forbidden.
At our age, the majority of those we love best are dead. What sort of
intercourse with God could I have if what I love best were unmentionable
to him?

When his Anglo-Catholic friends thought he was near death, they
arranged for him to receive Extreme Unction from an Anglo-Catholic
priest, and Lewis accepted it.

It is true that he perhaps said some things from time to time which
might allude to Protestant views, but it is equally clear that he had
rejected Protestantism at least as consistently as he rejected
theological liberalism. Though I obviously think there is benefit to be
had in reading Lewis, I think the reader must be discerning. For there
is little doubt where his sympathies lay on a great many crucial
issues, and those positions are not very congenial to historic
Protestant views.